FROM FAR AND NEAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4, 5 January 1903, Page 2

FROM FAR AND NEAR.

The title part in "Le Chien de Fontenoy," a new operette which is shortly to be produced at the Gaxte Theatre in Paris, is that of a dog, and the performer selected for the character is now said to be going through a ccurse of training at the hands of an expert in performing animals. We have had animals on the stage before, obviously destroying the perspective of the deliberately artificial by their unconscious naturalness, and virtually putting an end to illusion as long as they are upon the scene. And we have had performing animals, of whom "it is not wonderful that they dance badly, but that they dance at all," as Dr. Johnson said of the bears. But it has been left to the ingenuity of the modern French stage to combine the two and to present this distorted picture of an animal consciously imitating something, and yet not creating any sort of dramatic illusion. It should 'be just the sort of entertainment to appeal to the fantastic tastes of the French public.

Federal Ministers believe that they cannot be called upon to pay any State income tax, on the ground that their salaries are "Federal instrumentalities," which they contend are not subject to State laws. The Commissioner of Taxes, since he won his case against Dr. Wollaston, Comptroller of Customs, however, holds a different opinion, and on November 14 Ministers received a very official letter from him demanding payment of the Victorian tax. Commonwealth members have all been served with a similar notice. Ministers held hurried conferences to discuss the situation. They have no objection to drawing two salaries —one as members and the ether as Ministers—but they take very strong exception to having either taxed. All the legal members of the Cabinet are reported to have expressed the opinion that Mr. Prout Webb could not collect from them, and they made vague references to the High Court disallowing such a claim. But there is no Federal judiciary in existence, and the Commissioner's Bill is peremptory. What irritates Ministers is that two or three States are making similar calls upon them, so that they may have to pay twice over.

A crime was recently discovered in Paris, which, though sordid in certain of its details, yet has a strangeness in it, by reason of the character of the victim, that lifts it out of the ordinary category. The murdered woman "was an octogenarian, whose adventures in the days of the Empire formed the subject of many a scandal. She married aM. Lecomte, who was immensely rich, but she managed to. ruin him. Then she became the mistress of the Comte de Peragallo, colonel of the Imperial Guard, and with him . she lived at Nice, passing her days and nights in the gaming rooms. She was a born gambler, and at eighty-four she attended the races, and staked considerable sums of money- Twelve years ago the Count died, and this extraordinary woman then ran off with a young man of twenty-five. After a "life that supplied material for many a "chronique scandaleuse," she has perished miserably at the hands of an assassin. The motive was robbery.

If a correspondent who sends me the information is not mistaken writes a London correspondent), there is a soldier in a curious fix at Windsor. William Stewart is a reservist and time-expired man of the Ist Scots Guards. He arrived at the barracks at Windsor two days before his battalion, having been invalided home. Stewart has apparently few wishes, and the chief of these are that he may receive some back pay, some civilian clothes, and be allowed to go. But he is told by the War Office that these things cannot be done because he is "dead," having been officially reported so. Stewart distinctly asserts, on the other hand, that he is alive. The War Office answer is, in effect, that he must cont'nne to his decease until he is told that he is alive by the correction of' the inaccurate papers. Meanwhile, being dead, he cannot be put on the strength of the battalion, and he is simply fed by the goodwill of his comrades. When Stewart tries to leave the barracks to seek work he is prevented from doing so because he is in uniform. He cogently replies that, being dead, no notice ought to be tnken of him, and that he ought to be allowed to roam about—if he can. The "corpse" further says that he is owed £20, and that in the good old days when he was alive he used to earn a shilling an hour as a bricklayer.

A curious story was told at an inquest on a baby at Bethnal Green by the father, a baker 4 named Brown, of 26, Barnsley-street. It was alleged that the infant had been terribly neglected, and that the mother, who has been in three asylums, was in the habit of leaving the child in a sack of filthy straw in the cold kitchen all night. The father, who is away at work all night, told the following story: "My wife's parents used to keep a shop, and when she was sixteen or seventeen years old she was frightened by burglars. I used to go there to serve' them with bread. The doctor persuaded her to get married, and she was shoved on to me. I never had a proper chance. My mother-in-law gave me 10/ to get married, and I was packed into one room." He added that they had had seven children altogether, three only being now alive. The Coroner—But this one looks like a starved baby; it doesn't weigh much more than when it was born. The Father —I can prove my wife bought three or four large tins of milk every week for the child. The mother admitted leaving the baby in the kitchen, but added that she did so because her husband objected to it being taken to bed. Dr. John Bate said he found the child lying on a filthy sack of straw in a very dirty room. The body was greatly emaciated, and the stench was dreadful. The baby only weighed just over 71bs, instead of 201bs. Death was due to starvation, accelerated by pneumonia and neglect. The jury returned a verdict of "Manslaughter" against the mother in order that the state of her mind might be inquired into, and a severe censure was passed on the father,